MARKET CLOSE: Retail figures boost techs

Optimism about inflation carried technology stocks higher Thursday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 114.85 to 3,499.58. The S&P 500 gained 24.76 to 1,407.81. The Dow Jones Industrial Average picked up 178.19 to 10,545.97. The Inter@ctive Week @100 Index increased 117.83 to 4,828.58.

Data showing soft retail sales for April sparked a recovery from this week's three-day sell-off as Wall Street decided the numbers took some pressure off the central bank to continue raising borrowing costs to prevent inflation.

"What we're seeing here is definitely a shift in thinking with this retail figure," said Chris Dickerson, analyst at Global Market Strategists Inc. "People may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel of the Fed's tightening campaign."

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 9 1/2 to 115 9/16 after it reported a chip defect that makes thousands of computers vulnerable to crashes, a problem that could rival the famed Pentium flaw that cost the chip giant hundreds of millions of dollars in the early 90s.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) rose 1 11/16 to 67 7/8. The company on Wednesday asked the federal judge presiding over its antitrust case to consider a less harsh remedy than the government's breakup proposal.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) recovered 1 3/4 to 60 1/4 as news of its strong quarter finally helped counteract valuation concerns. Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) also gained 5/8 to 85 1/4 after suffering earlier this morning despite a strong quarterly report. Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) slipped 1/4 to 44 11/16 ahead of its quarterly report, expected after Thursday's closing bell.

Interliant (Nasdaq: INIT), up 1 3/8 to 19 1/4, said first quarter loss was 62 cents a share, much narrower than the 73 cents a share predicted by First Call Corp.

Value America (Nasdaq: VUSA) rose 1/8 to 2 3/32 after it announced $90 million in financing, and a loss of 60 cents a share for its first quarter.

Xybernaut (Nasdaq: XYBR) rose 1 5/8 to 10 9/16, or rocketed 27 percent Thursday after it said IBM will design, develop and manufacture the computer portion of its next generation of wearable computer systems.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 1 9/16 to 54 7/8, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) climbed 6 27/64 to 125 5/16 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) was unchanged at 53 11/16.